Customizing Icons

[arubislander]

@Salah said in Customizing Icons:

Hope next update will allow us to change themes & icons as well.

I wouldn't count on it. Customizability of the look and feel of the OS is not (high) on the agenda for UT.

It is not a rocket science.

I would have to disagree. Because this is simple to do in some Linux desktop environments does not mean it is simple to implement or to maintain.

There are also on the desktop quite a few Linus DE's or Distro's that discourage customization. Elementary OS with their Pantheon DE come to mind. But even Gnome is moving more firmly in this directions.

Officially allowing customization represents a bigger QA testing and support burden. This is not something the community can bear at the moment.

Having said all of that, there are community members that have dug in and gone all out customizing Lomiri according to their view and liking. One such member even offers a convenient way to install their customizations.

[Keneda]

@Salah
I don't think changing some icons is the kind of customisation that could break the system

[Salah]

@arubislander I see, Thank God I am using Ubuntu Mate which allows customization and freedom of changing appearance as per user's tase.

If Gnome and other distros going to be firm and strict regarding customization and thinking about Q/A. Then what makes difference than using windows 11 or other Mac. with boring UI and boring themes and so.

It is not a burden from my point of view. Check previous Ubuntu and Ubuntu Mate distros and will figure out what I am talking about.

Thanks again.

[Salah]

@Keneda This is suppose to be as per your saying.

I do not know.

[arubislander]

@Salah I have been using Ubuntu since 2004, so I know what you are talking about. I am not saying that one approach is better or worse than another. I am just explaining the differences.

On another note, I downloaded the Papirus icon back onto my Jingpad and copied it to ~/.local/share/icons. I then made a symbolic link to it in the same directory and called that suru. Upon a reboot the indicator icons where changed, but the application icons remained the same. So at this moment I am not sure if there is an easy way to change all those in one go.

EDIT: The icons in the App Drawer cannot be replaced in one go, because the .desktop files are pointing at hardcoded icon paths instead of icon names.

[AppLee]

@Salah said in Customizing Icons:

I see, Thank God I am using Ubuntu Mate which allows customization and freedom of changing appearance as per user's tase.

Ubuntu Touch is not a desktop distribution and maintaining and OS for mobile devices is not the same as desktop computers.
(Well technically laptop are mobile devices, but you get what I mean)

Also you still have freedom to do whatever you want.
You just don't have the skills or knowledge (yet)...

Asking questions about how the OS works in order to make a change that will benefit the community is greatly appreciated.
But it implies you want to put time and efforts into doing things without compromising the work of other contributors to the OS, what we call "the proper way". The work will be reviewed and merged if our quality standards are met.

I hope this clarifies things.

[Salah]

@arubislander Thanks for your reply

Can you show me pictures?

Thanks

[Salah]

@AppLee Thanks for your reply.

Am still learning how to use Ubuntu Touch and hope next version will be more functional.

[AppLee]

Hi @Salah

No problem

But be aware of the word you choose.
Customization is clearly not part of something being functional.

Ubuntu Touch is functional, I daily drive it and I'm not carrying an Android device with me all the time.
Sure there are some trade off but it is expected when you want control over your privacy.

It's more convenient to follow direction than to make hard decisions.

Also in a community based on volunteer work, "hope" will get you nothing, but you're welcome to help or try (and the community will help you back).

[arubislander]

@Salah no, sorry I have since then reverted my changes, as I did not like the result.

[wally]

There was an app called Custom Phablet Tools that let you change your icons. It wasn't updated to 20.04, but I still have it working on a Oneplus 5T running 16.04.
https://open-store.io/app/custom-phablet-tools.kazord

It has a bunch of set icon packs, which are quite incomplete and out of date. There's no built-in way to add your own icons or to edit these packs within the app, but if somebody took on maintaining that app, perhaps they could change that. First thing would be to bring it to 20.04 of course.
I have no sense of how hard this is, and no skills to help. Just thought it might be a safer way to try to go about this if you don't wanna go the hacky routes.

But of course this requires somebody doing it, and the devs are a bunch of volunteer superheros who're already working on a bunch of very important and difficult sounding things like VoLTE, 5G, a newer browser, updating to 24.04, etc.

[ikoz]

@wally Just ported the app to 20.04, changing icons works!
This is the new repository: https://gitlab.com/ikozyris/custom-phablet-tools,
I plan to publish it to the open store if it works for others as well.
Took me ~2 hours.
I might add a way to add custom icons, currently they are downloaded from https://framagit.org/ubuntouch-fr-dev/custom-phablet-tools/raw/media/icons/[APP-NAME.EXTENSION].

[Keneda]

Beware it's an app that have full access to the system.

[wally]

@ikoz Wow, that's amazing that you did that! Thanks, on behalf of the community!
You spent two hours on that. It will take me longer than two hours just to understand how gitlab works and to install (build?) the app to help test
But I'll try!
Hopefully others like @Salah take notice and can help test too.
Again, thanks!

[ikoz]

@wally It is already built automatically by gitlab see the pipelines. Just noticed the click package says xenial but it is focal, I will fix it tomorrow.

Also one can already install custom icons by replacing the backup folder (/opt/click.ubuntu/custom-phablet-tools.kazord/current/assets/backup) with a folder with new icons, but better wait a few days to add it to the app.

[wally]

Thanks @ikoz, that saved me a lot of time.
Installed, ran and performed successfully on my Oneplus 5T running 20.04 stable channel.
Bravo!!

[Salah]

Thank you guys for interacting in my thread and hope to see an application regarding changing icons published soon officially.

[ikoz]

@Salah I'm currently rewriting the backend to not require remounting as read-write. Currently this arm64 focal .click works. Screenshot:

[Salah]

@ikoz Thant is terrefic. Nice for a change.

Also it would be more eye catching if icons would be vivid with colors and unique (my suggestion).

Thumbs Up

[ikoz]

@Salah There are dozens of icon packs, inherited from the old app and renamed to adapt to changes as it hasn't been maintained for 4 years.